America may have brought the world the regional mall. But now innovative projects popping up overseas are taking that and other retail concepts into new and innovative directions, setting a lead that U.S. firms may increasingly want to follow.
There are several reasons why projects in markets as diverse as Morocco, the Philippines and United Kingdom are all worth looking at. For one, U.S. developers tend to be more conservative when it comes to design, leading to a more cookie-cutter approach even when owners venture into newer property types like lifestyle centers and mixed-use projects. Secondly, building codes in the U.S. tend to be more restrictive, limiting the variety of building types and materials that can be employed. Lastly, the retail market in the U.S. is more mature and there are very few new projects going up today, creating fewer opportunities for experimentation.
At the same time, business conditions at home are forcing firms that traditionally have focused on work in the U.S. to build or bolster their practices abroad. (For example, Seattle-based architecture firm Callison, which has been active in Asia for more than 20 years, recently entered into a joint venture with China-based HAYA Architects.)
So more U.S. architects than ever are participating in or being exposed to creative projects abroad, which translates into more of the examples being applied back in the U.S.
“The experimentation and the new ideas are now being implemented in Asia and elsewhere,” says Ro Shroff, a principal with Callison. “And we can bring in the newer sensibilities we are experimenting with back to the U.S. when things turn around.”
One quality overseas projects tend to have, which U.S. firms have sometimes struggled to emulate, is that they often fit into their surroundings and provide a cohesive sense of place. U.S. mixed-use and lifestyle projects often are criticized for being pretty, but generic—some are compared to the staged settings at Disney theme parks. All the elements of a classic downtown may be present, but the place feels plastic and like it could be anywhere. Likewise, U.S. malls are still trying to shake off their image as generic and boxy fortresses.
Retail architects in Europe, Asia and Africa, on the other hand, are better at integrating projects with existing histories and ecologies of the sites on which they are built. For example, the design scheme of the Morocco Mall in Casablanca was inspired by the local waterfront. Its layout is based on the shape of a sea shell. Water features are sprinkled throughout the property, and the mall includes a 1 million liter aquarium—the largest of its kind in the Northern Hemisphere.
Meanwhile, the Manila, Philippines-based Greenbelt 5, was sited within an existing urban park and incorporates an existing chapel into the mix. Because the chapel is a popular Sunday morning destination for many devout Christians, the developer, Ayala Land Inc., never had to worry about attracting enough traffic to the property, says Shroff, whose firm worked on the project. What’s more, the open-air Greenbelt complex mimics the feel of an authentic downtown shopping district by placing its shops and restaurants on tiered terraces. The 524,000-square-foot lifestyle center was awarded an Urban Land Institute (ULI) Excellence Award in 2010.
Overseas projects often also benefit from traffic generated by sports and entertainment venues, says Dustin Watson, partner with Development Design Group, a Baltimore, Md.-based architecture firm. For example, bars and restaurants at the O2 in London get a boost from traffic generated by a 20,000-seat stadium/concert hall that hosts about 175 events per year. The project also includes an 11-screen cinema complex and a music club.
“A lot of retail projects are just that, retail projects,” says NormaLynn Cutler, president of Cutler Enterprises, a marketing firm that specializes in real estate developments. “This is creating a whole new center of the city, where everything is larger than large.”
International developers have also embraced the green building trend more quickly than their U.S. counterparts, giving architects another avenue for experimentation. For example, the Rouse Hill Town Centre in Sydney, Australia was constructed using 130,000 tons of recycled materials. It also recycles rainwater to cut down on water consumption and uses trees to provide shade in its outdoor areas during the summer and cut down on the need for air conditioning. In addition, the center boasts an integrated network of pedestrian and bicycle paths.
In recent years, even retail centers in the Middle East, where developers have historically not been concerned about energy consumption, have started incorporating sustainable features, says Jeff Gunning, Dallas-based vice president and retail sector leader with RTKL Associates, a global architecture firm. For example, RTKL-designed Mirdif City Centre, a 2.5-million-square-foot mall that recently opened in Dubai, is seeking Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.
“It’s not just about sourcing local materials, but looking at innovating lighting and mechanical systems to cut back on energy use,” Gunning says. “It’s becoming more and more of an expectation. I don’t think there has been much emphasis on it in the U.S. because right around the beginning of the downturn in 2007 the sustainability conversation had just begun. I don’t really know of large-scale projects in the U.S. that have enclosed retail that event attempted to take sustainability to the same extent as projects in other parts of the world.”
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Greenbelt 5
Described by Callison as “Times Square meets Central Park”, the Greenbelt retail complex attempts to recreate the filling of an authentic downtown with public spaces and open-air restaurants set on tiered terraces. Greenbelt 5 is a 523,000-square-foot upscale lifestyle center that marks the final phase of the five Greenbelt components.
When the developer started work on the site in Makati City, in the metro Manila area, it already served as a central destination for local residents. It contained an urban park and a chapel that attracted devout Christians for Sunday Mass on a weekly basis, according to Ro Shroff. Wishing to take advantage of the existing foot traffic and make the project complement its surroundings, Callison opted to preserve both the park and the chapel and build the retail center around it.
Only approximately 20 percent of Greenbelt’s space is located indoors. Most of the project uses open-air balconies and plazas to create the filling of a downtown entertainment district. Walkways connect Greenbelt 5 to earlier phases of the project, as well as to the local Ayala Museum, one of the most important cultural institutions in the Philippines. In spite of Manila’s tropical climate, shoppers love to take advantage of its largely open-air setting, says Shroff.
“It’s part of the philosophy we have as a firm that retail does not always need to be in a conditioned environment,” he notes. “It’s hot and humid and Greenbelt is kind of in the middle of it, but people love this place, they embrace it as an urban environment. It’s a microcosm of a city. And it has positive implications for retailers because there are fewer common area management (CAM) charges.”
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Rouse Hill Town Centre
While many projects in Europe and Asia benefit from an existing sense of place, the Rouse Hill Towne Centre in the northwestern suburb of Sydney demonstrates that it’s possible to create a compelling downtown-style environment from scratch.
The GPT Group and its design team used the traditional town square as inspiration and wanted to make certain Rouse Hill was not viewed as just another shopping center. To achieve that goal, they kept in mind that authentic downtowns include a mix of community venues, residential housing, businesses, restaurants and stores in a pedestrian-friendly setting. The Rouse Hill Town Centre houses 210 stores. But in addition, it features 104 apartments, 30,140 square feet of office space, a nine-screen movie theater, a community center and library and a medical center among its venues. There are child-friendly outdoor areas on site and a secret garden for visitors to explore.
To make the center easy to navigate, the architects separated it into four distinct areas, each with a themed set of stores and restaurants, which meet in the designated “town square.” A color coded layout allows customers to quickly gauge which part of the center they are in.
“The central town square is a place for civic events where people can meet and relax,” says Bill Williams, head of retail with the GPT Group. “With a fountain and public art, it is an active space by day and night. It is also the location of residential apartments and the Council Library and Community Centre.”
The architects also incorporated pedestrian walkways and bike paths into the design, to give visitors the sense they were walking the streets of a downtown. Rouse Hill uses a combination of outdoor and indoor spaces, but there are no doors between the outside and inside sections to prevent the feeling of being stuck in a traditional mall fortress. Instead, the sections are divided by gates, allowing the landlord to close the apparel retail component in the evening while the restaurants and entertainment venues continue to work into the late hours, notes Williams.
And by using glass panels to let in the maximum amount of natural light into the center’s enclosed areas, the design team made the transition from outdoor into indoor sections feel seamless, says John Fitzgerald, executive director for Asia with the ULI.
Given that the town center format has proven to be a tough one to pull off, “we were a little skeptical going in as to whether they would be able to deliver,” says Fitzgerald. “But during our jury’s ground site visits and interviews with visitors, they were able to observe the activity in the place and it felt like a vibrant, lively center.”
Given that the town center format has proven to be a tough one to pull off, “we were a little skeptical going in as to whether they would be able to deliver,” says Fitzgerald. “But during our jury’s ground site visits and interviews with visitors, they were able to observe the activity in the place and it felt like a vibrant, lively center.”
The center features a 150,000 liter tank to collect storm water. It aims to use approximately 60 percent less water than the average retail center in the region. The developer has planted about 130,000 new trees on the site. And all of the center’s retail tenants have to complete an “ecological footprint calculator form” to minimize energy and water consumption.
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Morocco Mall
One of the projects generating the most buzz today is one that has not yet even opened. Set to be the largest retail center in North Africa, Morocco Mall has been designed to look like a natural extension of the surrounding environment.
The architects took inspiration from the mall’s location on the Casablanca waterfront, to create a structure evocative of a sea shell, with oblong exterior lines made of white fabric and glass. A 140,000-square-foot Galleries Lafayette store has been designated as the pearl inside the shell.
The mall’s connection to nature doesn’t end with its shape. Design International incorporated skylights throughout the mall to provide as much natural light as possible and placed a 1 million liter aquarium inside the property to play off the sea motif. The mall’s interior has been enhanced with palm trees and water features.
Design International also aimed at achieving environmental sustainability. It used sustainable materials in the construction process, gave the mall’s façade a double skin to provide natural insulation, and incorporated both a roof glazing system that is expected to cut solar transmission to 8 percent and a water recycling system.
To make the Morocco Mall a true retail and entertainment destination, the firm included an ice rink and a kid’s area into the center’s design. It also installed more than 4,900 feet of LED screens on both the exterior and interior walls of the mall.
“The Morocco Mall is an incredibly ambitious project that promises to add a new dimension to the commercial market in northern Africa,” says Sian Disson, news editor with World Architecture News. “Its vibrant displays, gently curving lines and expressive form are synonymous with Design International’s bold style and it will be interesting to see how the realized form corresponds with the original plans.”
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ION Orchard
In many ways, the ION Orchard in Singapore represents the best of the design aesthetic followed by Asian developers and architects in recent years. Because of the scarcity of land in many Asian cities, most projects in the region are vertical, rather than horizontal, and take advantage of existing links to major transportation terminals, says Brian E. Wolfe, senior principal with Perkowitz + Ruth Architects, a Long Beach, Calif.-based firm. That’s certainly true in the case of the ION Orchard, an eight-level enclosed mall which serves as the base for a 54-story luxury residential tower.
The project benefits from its location on Orchard Road, a highly trafficked thoroughfare that, according to the developers, is passed by 200,000 people daily. It offers its visitors access to a major subway station on the basement level, as well as being connected to nearby buildings by a system of underground walkways. The walkways serve as home to small shops, mostly fast casual dining establishments and the like.
“We are seeing a lot of subterranean supermarkets and subterranean food courts in mixed-use projects in Asia because it allows for higher density,” Wolfe notes. “It’s a common, accepted practice.” But while in the U.S. a high-density mixed-use project often ends up as a typical rectangular box or a collection of boxes, ION Orchard features striking design in addition to fulfilling the developers’ practical considerations.
Benoy Ltd., the architecture firm behind the center, used the concept of a fruit hidden inside a skin as its inspiration. The “skin” on the ION Orchard is a three-dimensional curvilinear façade made of energy-efficient glass and metal. Benoy created interlocking curves and peaks to make the façade mimic the patterns found in nature. The architects also installed several high-resolution LED screens into the center’s “skin” to allow the broadcast of public videos and advertisements.
In addition, to ensure steady visitor traffic, the center features a 32,000-square-foot public event space covered by a monocoque façade and canopy and a 5,600-square-foot modern art gallery.
“It’s very innovative, especially in design,” says ULI’s Fitzgerald. “Singapore is an example of a country where they push the envelope, from the design standpoint to sustainability to linkages with transit.”
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The O2
While other projects might struggle with the challenge of creating a distinct sense of place on an empty lot, the O2 in London faced a different problem—erasing the stigma of failure.
The O2 is located inside the Millennium Dome, an exhibition venue built to celebrate the beginning of the 21st century. In spite of its unique design—the Millennium Dome is a large circular sphere made of glass fiber fabric and supported by 12 yellow 328-foot-high towers, each representing a month of the year—it never attracted as much traffic as the local government had hoped. As a result, it got massacred in the British press as an enormous failure and money drain. The Millennium Dome as exhibition space closed in December 2000.
Yet, the Richard Rogers-designed structure was striking enough visually to attract the attention of AEG, the developer behind the Staples Center in Los Angeles. NormaLynn Cutler, of Cutler Enterprises, describes the building, which is set on the Thames River, as “breathtaking.”
“The Millennium Dome itself had become one of the world’s most iconic buildings,” says Alistair Wood, executive director of real estate with AEG Europe. “But it was shadowed by some fairly negative PR. We initially had some reservations about it, but ultimately got comfortable with the site’s connectivity and our ability to build what we wanted to build inside.”
When AEG came into the possession of the dome, the firm opted to tear down all the semi-permanent exhibition buildings inside and leave intact only the dome’s exterior shell. It then went about creating an entertainment city within the dome. The centerpiece of the O2 is a 20,000-seat arena that can host both sporting events and concerts. In the next six months alone, the arena will be used for the National Television Awards, NBA Games and concerts by Lady Gaga, Shakira and Andrea Bocelli. The versatility of the venue ensures that the O2 sees high traffic counts on a daily basis, rather than just on the days of major sports events, notes Cutler.
Meanwhile, around the dome the architects placed a circular street called Entertainment Avenue, which is lined by artificial palm trees. Buildings along Entertainment Avenue house a collection of 25 bars, restaurants and shops, in addition to an 11-screen cinema complex, a music club that can double as a comedy club and a corporate event space and an exhibition hall. A piazza adjoining the main structure serves as setting for temporary amusements, which have included everything from an indoor beach to a dry ski slope. “We wanted to make this the world’s premier leisure attraction,” says Wood.
Unlike its predecessor, the O2 has become wildly successful in the wake of its opening in 2007, in part because of its skillful integration of entertainment venues with shops and restaurants.
“It’s not just dependent on big events,” says Cutler. “People go there for dinner and a movie.” The O2 is part of a larger master-planned development on the Greenwich Peninsula, which will eventually include 10,000 homes, more than 3 million square feet of office space and a four-star hotel (most of the residential and office components will be built by AEG’s partners, Meridian Delta Ltd., Quintain Estates and Development Plc and Lend Lease Europe Ltd.). There is also approximately 250,000 square feet of space left within the dome itself for which plans have not yet been finalized.
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